Wednesday, May 18, 2011

A week after Aaj Tak and STAR News exposed the investment fraud by Speak Asia Online (SAOL), its franchises were raided at two locations in the Uttar Pradesh capital for alleged evasion of service tax. The information was confirmed by the office of commissioner of excise and service tax in Lucknow.

Meanwhile, the Union government also stepped in to ensure that the investors were not taken for a ride. The ministry of company affairs said that the government would ensure that the "Singapore-based" company did not indulge in any action which could adversely impact the investors who have put in millions of rupees into it.

Speak Asia, which hawked a "get rich quick" scheme, had landed in a trouble after Mumbai Police received a complaint filed by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya on Tuesday to probe its operations. Earlier this week, STAR News exposed Speak Asia's false claims of having clients like ICICI Bank and Samsung on their roster. Somaiya wants the finance ministry to follow the trail of the large sums of money raised by this company and its modus operandi.

There is still no clarity about Speak Asia's business model and no information has been forthcoming as to who owns the company and how it makes money, though it appeared to be another chain-marketing scheme.

On Monday, SAOL has said that it has worked for companies such as Bata, Nestle,Airtel, ICICI and ING Vysya but has not provided commissioned services to them amidst media reports that the company had falsely claimed them as their clients. "We have interacted and worked with these companies. But we have not provided any commissioned services to them," Speak Asia India's CEO Manoj Kumar, said.

SAOL is a company where consumers pay around Rs 11,000 for a membership which will allow them to conduct some surveys online for the firm. The members also get paid for filling those surveys. It is believed that the Rs 11,000 investment could be recovered within three months.

Kirit Somaiya has filed a complaint with the Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing against Speak Asia Online (SAOL) and has asked for a case of financial irregularities and foreign exchange violation to be lodged against the online survey company. Earlier this week, STAR News exposed Speak Asia's false claims of having clients like ICICI Bank and Samsung on their roster.

Somaiya wants the finance ministry to follow the trail of the large sums of money raised by this company and its modus operandi. There is still no clarity about Speak Asia's business model and no information has been forthcoming as to who owns the company and how it makes money, though it appeared to be another chain-marketing scheme. Speak Asia in dock

The foreign exchange violations committed by the company could also be under the jurisdiction of the Enforcement Directorate. The pooling of funds and the import of bogus software could also be probed Enforcement Directorate.

Earlier on Monday, SAOL has said that it has worked for companies such as Bata, Nestle,Airtel, ICICI and ING Vysya but has not provided commissioned services to them amidst media reports that the company had falsely claimed them as their clients. "We have interacted and worked with these companies. But we have not provided any commissioned services to them," Speak Asia India's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Manoj Kumar, said.

SAOL is a company where consumers pay around Rs 11,000 for a membership which will allow them to conduct some surveys online for the firm. The members also get paid for filling those surveys. It is believed that the Rs 11,000 investment could be recovered within three months.

There were reports that during a trade fair in Goa, SAOL marketing team had claimed that ICICI, ING Vysya, Bata, Airtel and Nestle were its clients. However, it was later reported in some sections of the media that the companies denied having any business connections with SAOL.

"There has been some miscommunication in the media about our relationship with the companies. Our marketing team had during a trade fair in Goa said that the companies were our clients. There has been some factual errors on our part. I apologise to the companies on behalf of my team. We have only worked with them," he said.

When asked if the company was allegedly violating the regulations of RBI, Kumar said, "the regulations of the RBI are regarding foreign exchange transactions. We have followed all the guidelines in regard to the forex money transfer. ICICI and ING Vysya are involved in forex remittances for us. We have no banking business with these banks."

On the Goa government conducting an inquiry against the company, he said, SAOL has not received any official communication on it. "We will provide all the details to the authorities if there is any investigation. We have all the necessary documents. We have not done anything wrong. But if we are found guilty, we are ready to face the consequences," he said.

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Asia. Headlines Today has learnt that despite established knowledge, Speak Asia is not based in Singapore.

The real owner or majority stakeholder is based in British Virgin Island, a known tax haven. The tax haven is used by tax evaders to channelise ill-gotten wealth.

Documents in possession of Headlines Today show while Harinder Kaur is a representative director of Speak Asia, the real owners or stakeholders have been identified as Podium Ring International Limited, based in Tortola in Virgin Islands.

The secrecy in the ownership of Speak Asia conforms to a typical offshore structure where multi-layered waterfall structure is created to hide the actual owner. So that brings us to the all important question, who owns Speak Asia which has investment worth millions from Indians. The documents in Headlines Today'spossession show Wong Chuen Shya as secretary. This can prove to be a challenge for Indian agencies as information from British Virgin Island can be obtained only through a letter rogatory.

Noose tightens
The noose is tightening around Speak Asia after Headlines Today uncovered irregularities in the functioning of the market research website.

After the Headlines Today investigation, authorities in Uttar Pradesh raided two franchisees of Speak Asia.

The raids were conducted after allegations of service tax violations against these franchisees.

The raids were confirmed to Headlines Today by the office of Commissioner for Excise and Service Tax in Lucknow.

Authorities also concede that the raids are a follow-up to the Headlines Today investigation.

Govt probe
Speak Asia's worries don't end there. The Centre has also now stepped in to ensure that the company's investors of Speak Asia are not taken for a ride.

The Ministry of Company affairs has told Headlines Today that the government will ensure that the company does not indulge in any action which adversely impact the investors who have poured in millions into Speak Asia. D.K. Mittal, Secretary of Ministry of Company Affairs, said that the department will work in close collaboration with the RBI and SEBI to safeguard investors' interest. The government will now look into the alleged act of irregularities of the market research company.

A Headlines Today special investigation on Tuesday exposed the irregularities in Speak Asia

Monday, May 16, 2011

SpeakAsiaOnline is most popular inIndia, Bangladesh and Nepal, all of which are developing countries with a number of poor educated/semi-educated youth, who are always looking for easy ways to make money without much efforts and a number of opportunities targeting this segment of market are frequently floated in various forms by many companies and people in the region.

Membership of this company Speak Asia Online from India has skyrocketed in last three months as its based on a MLM (Network Marketing) concept and people who are already a member are luring others to join due to a number of reasons.

You can see its latest Worldwide Traffic Ranking, it is ranking high in these three countries Bangladesh, India and Nepal which are still developing countries with a major part of population living below poverty line.

Please note that paid online surveys cannot uplift the economy of any country, these are only conducted by market research companies who pay participators who contribute there views about various products and services and help market research companies to know more about there customers mindset.

Is It A Scam or An Opportunity

Well it is not a real legitimate opportunity, its just an opportunity for scammers and those who only want to make money without considering its source and purpose,it is a good opportunity for people who can recruit others as member, just like common MLM opportunities, spread across market.

Following facts that must be considered:

1. SpeakAsiaOnline.com is a web based business and its domain name was registered in year 2010 only. Anyone can register a domain name, even right now and then get a website designed by someone and if it works as per the plans, then one can extend registration for more years.

2. SpeakAsiaOnline is registered as a Pvt. Ltd. Company in Singapore and therefore isbeyond the jurisdiction of Indian Laws. In India we don’t know about the basic requirements of getting a company registered in Singapore, conditions on which it can work, its responsibilities etc. etc. Even here in India we can get our own private limited company registered if we are ready to invest few thousand rupees.

3. SpeakAsiaOnline is a membership based site i.e., one must invest in its membership before, he/she can participate in its weekly surveys and make money, the membership fee is $100 i.e, INR11,000 per annum, which has to be paid each year.

Please note no survey company in the world asks for money from participants to take surveys. Surveys are conducted for market research and are therefore useful and even important for companies to understand market before launching a product or service or just to plan there business strategies, anyone can join some companies without paying anything like Global Test Market (which pays in Indian Rupees via Cheque and do not deduct any redemption charges) which conduct online surveys globally.

Companies or some people who maintain a database of such companies do ask for money to give access to there list of Paid Online Survey companies.

None of these companies charge a recurring annual fee.

4. SpeakAsiaOnline is paying 10 points (1 point equals 1 USD) which is too much for a country like India, Nepal or Bangladesh. I don’t think that even companies that conduct surveys in USA/UK pay this much for a similar survey regularly.

5. Every good survey company conducts a preliminary survey of every participant before allowing him/her to take real survey and those who satisfy this are only allowed to take survey (cause there are limited number of participants allowed for a specific profile).

If you have already joined or are willing to join then please do read this post when its completed and share your views via commenting here. I’m quiet sure that there is something wrong with SpeakAsiaOnline Opportunity in India.

You can read more at Yahoo Answers India Answers to a question on “What is Speak Asia Online?”. You can see that almost all people who replied (except one) are members of this MLM company (Speak Asia) and trying to recruit other members under there own downline.

Well, it seems a number of Indians have already invested there money in Speak Asia Online Opportunity and as the income from weekly surveys is limited, they are trying to recruit as many people as they can using various means (today I see more marketing propaganda online and offline) and personal resources.

I don’t think either the company or its members should worry about this, our parliament in India is itself a house of a number of tainted MPs, and this is also the case with legislative assemblies, a number of scams and corruption cases are being surfaced and more are taking place and yet to be discovered. In-spite of all these facts and our familiarity with these issues and people we recruit/elect same people after some time and they reach parliament and assemblies again???

Why, because we are Indians & Indians are known to be aware of there rights and duties. Read more in Facts About India Today.

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We request you to provide maximum information related to your travel plan in the "Requirements" field This will help us to process your information quickly and accurately.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

SpeakAsiaOnline is most popular in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, all of which are developing countries with a number of poor educated/semi-educated youth, who are always looking for easy ways to make money without much efforts and a number of opportunities targeting this segment of market are frequently floated in various forms by many companies and people in the region.

Membership of this company Speak Asia Online from India has skyrocketed in last three months as its based on a MLM (Network Marketing) concept and people who are already a member are luring others to join due to a number of reasons.

You can see its latest Worldwide Traffic Ranking, it is ranking high in these three countries Bangladesh, India and Nepal which are still developing countries with a major part of population living below poverty line.

Please note that paid online surveys cannot uplift the economy of any country, these are only conducted by market research companies who pay participators who contribute there views about various products and services and help market research companies to know more about there customers mindset.

Is It A Scam or An Opportunity

Well it is not a real legitimate opportunity, its just an opportunity for scammers and those who only want to make money without considering its source and purpose, it is a good opportunity for people who can recruit others as member, just like common MLM opportunities, spread across market.

Following facts that must be considered:

1. SpeakAsiaOnline.com is a web based business and its domain name was registered in year 2010 only. Anyone can register a domain name, even right now and then get a website designed by someone and if it works as per the plans, then one can extend registration for more years.

2. SpeakAsiaOnline is registered as a Pvt. Ltd. Company in Singapore and therefore is beyond the jurisdiction of Indian Laws. In India we don't know about the basic requirements of getting a company registered in Singapore, conditions on which it can work, its responsibilities etc. etc. Even here in India we can get our own private limited company registered if we are ready to invest few thousand rupees.

3. SpeakAsiaOnline is a membership based site i.e., one must invest in its membership before, he/she can participate in its weekly surveys and make money, the membership fee is $100 i.e, INR11,000 per annum, which has to be paid each year.

Please note no survey company in the world asks for money from participants to take surveys. Surveys are conducted for market research and are therefore useful and even important for companies to understand market before launching a product or service or just to plan there business strategies, anyone can join some companies without paying anything like Global Test Market (which pays in Indian Rupees via Cheque and do not deduct any redemption charges) which conduct online surveys globally.

Companies or some people who maintain a database of such companies do ask for money to give access to there list of Paid Online Survey companies.

None of these companies charge a recurring annual fee.

4. SpeakAsiaOnline is paying 10 points (1 point equals 1 USD) which is too much for a country like India, Nepal or Bangladesh. I don't think that even companies that conduct surveys in USA/UK pay this much for a similar survey regularly.

5. Every good survey company conducts a preliminary survey of every participant before allowing him/her to take real survey and those who satisfy this are only allowed to take survey (cause there are limited number of participants allowed for a specific profile).

If you have already joined or are willing to join then please do read this post when its completed and share your views via commenting here. I'm quiet sure that there is something wrong with SpeakAsiaOnline Opportunity in India.

You can read more at Yahoo Answers India answers to a question on "What is Speak Asia Online?". You can see that almost all people who replied (except one) are members of this MLM company (Speak Asia) and trying to recruit other members under there own downline.

Well, it seems a number of Indians have already invested there money in Speak Asia Online Opportunity and as the income from weekly surveys is limited, they are trying to recruit as many people as they can using various means (today I see more marketing propaganda online and offline) and personal resources.

I don't think either the company or its members should worry about this, our parliament in India is itself a house of a number of tainted MPs, and this is also the case with legislative assemblies, a number of scams and corruption cases are being surfaced and more are taking place and yet to be discovered. In-spite of all these facts and our familiarity with these issues and people we recruit/elect same people after some time and they reach parliament and assemblies again???

Why, because we are Indians & Indians are known to be aware of there rights and duties. Read more in Facts About India Today.

Anonymous said...
Good one i like the way you express your concern. Thank you. Could you please say something about RAM SURVEY ?
12:02 AM
Trial Blazer said...
nice and informative commentary about the scam. hope your writeup will help few people.
7:20 AM
Anonymous said...
I think, You have searched only on internet. Have you ever tried to collect any knowledge from other sources. Have you ever tried to meet or ask SpeakAsia's management persons? It is not wrong if they has started the company on a small scale but now they are expending it as the company is growing. Company is going to take office in April in Goregaon, Mumbai. Company has a lot of plans too. They have appointed more than 150 managers. They are going to start advertising service. Which will help company to increase its revenue. And if a company is earning good and the concept and the business module is good, company will definitely survive. You know how to write a blog and can surf internet doesn't mean you are writing everything correct. Do proper research and know the concept and business module of the company then comment. Thanks

You are right, most of the information that I've collected comes from online sources, but this doesn't mean that I am writing without the right information or the writing is baseless.

It is true that company is expanding because it is profitable but it doesn't mean that anyone who joins it will also make that much money.

Speak Asia Online is basically a MLM and they charge a high annual membership fee which is wrong and none of the legitimate survey companies across the world charges this much money for survey participation membership alone.

Can you tell me why this company is only successful in India and not in its parent country or anywhere else in developed countries.

Well, India is an amazing country, people like Parliament Attack convict Afzal Guru and terrorist involved in 2008 Mumbai attack Ajmal Kasab are yet to be hanged.

Our own leaders involved in Commonwealth Games 2010, 2G Spectrum Scam, Adarsh Housing Society, Bullet Proof Jackets and DRDO etc. etc. are well known and it is really shame that those who are involved are confidently denying all allegations.

I'm myself involved (or to say the least am a member of SpeakAsiaOnline) that is why I know how good or bad it is and I didn't joined it to make money alone but to test its legitimacy.

I'm myself a computer professional and online entrepreneur but I'm also a human and have some duties towards my country and country men.

I don't have anything against any company, but I do not want any innocent person who cannot even afford the membership fee to think that now he/she can be financially independent with this opportunity.

I don't write this blog for promoting something, or for my business, it is my modest attempt to open my heart and disclose my feeling to my countrymen and to guide them towards right direction (in my opinion). Right to freedom is our fundamental right granted by Indian Constitution.

So, this post will not harm anyone it will only make them more aware and knowledgeable on the subject and after that one is free to take his/her own decision. I'm not even asking anyone to join under my own referral id.

Thanks for visiting and sharing your views.
10:39 PM
Anonymous said...
beautifully explained!!! great job yogesh!
11:00 AM
Anonymous said...
Dear,
I went through your findings/observation on speakasiaonline, keenly. You have mentioned that you are a member of the above company. Which membership are you holding? Are you a premium member or standard? Do you have any grievance of non receipt of payment for the survey you have done. Please let us know so that the same can be taken up. Let us not mislead innocent people. I do agree one should not go ahead blindly.
10:23 AM
Anonymous said...
Please don't register to speakasia online.Its s fake company. I am a part of that company and m still suffering from that..
10:03 PM
Anonymous said...
Hi Yogesh & Anonymous,

I think, we all are there with the same amount of risk involved. The company charging / paying high is not a problem, but we must enquire whether the surveys floated are genuine? Is the income really coming from the clients who are conducting surveys?. In my opinion, these are the basic questions. If the answers to these questions are "yes", then we should not think much about its integrity.

Let's divert our efforts towards these questions.

Thanks

Do you know, even China has a population similar to India (mentality and financial) but such companies do not exist there, they are only flourishing in India, because we Indians today are very short sighted, we are satisfied if we are in profit.

अधमा धनम इच्छतिधन मानो च मध्यमाउत्तमम मानम इच्छतिमानो ही मेहताम धनम

I hope some people still remember the philosophy of India.

Please note no survey company in the world asks for money from participants to take surveys. Surveys are conducted for market research and are therefore useful and even important for companies to understand market before launching a product or service or just to plan there business strategies, anyone can join some companies without paying anything like Global Test Market (which pays in Indian Rupees via Cheque and do not deduct any redemption charges) which conduct online surveys globally.

Companies or some people who maintain a database of such companies do ask for money to give access to there list of Paid Online Survey companies.

None of these companies charge a recurring annual fee.

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See some comments :

Anumita Das said...

I think, You have searched only on internet. Have you ever tried to collect any knowledge from other sources. Have you ever tried to meet or ask SpeakAsia's management persons? It is not wrong if they has started the company on a small scale but now they are expending it as the company is growing. Company is going to take office in April in Goregaon, Mumbai. Company has a lot of plans too. They have appointed more than 150 managers. They are going to start advertising service. Which will help company to increase its revenue. And if a company is earning good and the concept and the business module is good, company will definitely survive. You know how to write a blog and can surf internet doesn't mean you are writing everything correct. Do proper research and know the concept and business module of the company then comment. Thanks